Eurocom shuts its doors amid financial pressure

SHARE THIS ARTICLE

Eurocom, the British developer behind the latest James Bond game, has gone into administration.

The developer, based in Derby, made 150 redundancies last month following a number of cancelled console projects. Its remaining 50 staff were told this morning that they had been laid off.

Eurocom issued a statement to Eurogamer this afternoon: “Today Dean Nelson, from Midlands business advisory firm Smith Cooper, was appointed Administrator of Eurocom Developments Limited, who have been experiencing financial difficulties due to expected contracts being delayed, which has resulted in a severe cash flow shortage.

“Since 2008, there has been a steep decline in the sales of Console and PC games, which has led to a severe contraction in the number of new games being commissioned from global publishers of entertainment software. The company has also faced intense competition from developers in countries with lower costs or those subsidised with generous games tax credits.

“As a result of pressure from HMRC, the directors of Eurocom filed a Notice of Intention to Appoint an Administrator at Court in order to allow time for attempts to save the Eurocom business. The Administrator and the company's directors have been negotiating with customers surrounding new contracts to develop console games, however these contracts could not be secured in time and due to insufficient funds to pay outstanding wages, Eurocom today entered Administration.

“As a result, the remaining 42 employees have been made redundant today and the business has ceased to trade after some 25 years, having grown organically to become one of the largest and most prolific independent console games developers worldwide.

“The Directors of Eurocom would like to offer their heartfelt thanks to all their staff that have been made redundant at this difficult time, and show their appreciation of all of their hard work in consistently delivering exceptional games.”

Administrator Dean Nelson said: “Whilst this is unfortunately the end of the established Eurocom business, efforts are continuing behind the scenes to attract interested parties to Derby in order to help fill the void left by Eurocom. We are still hopeful that there will in the future be a specialist software business operating in Derby in place of Eurocom, but the focus will be completely different and therefore this is sadly the end of the console games development business.”

“It looks like they were unable to rescue the company,” one former member of staff told Eurogamer. “A sad end to 25 years of development.”

Eurocom is best known for developing several James Bond games for Activision, including the latest, 007 Legends. The studio was founded in 1988 and has developed dozens of titles in its time.